Printer exploration with PowerShell

Following are a few printing related PowerShell one-liners that I demonstrated for a few colleagues at work. -Enjoy!

# List all printer drivers on a specific server           
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_PrinterDriver -ComputerName PrintServer `
 | Sort-Object Name `
 | Select-Object Name, DriverPath            
          
# List all properties of a specifc printer driver on a server           
Get-WmiObject Win32_PrinterDriver -ComputerName PrintServer -Filter "Name='Lexmark Universal XL,3,Windows x64'"           
          
# List Printers for a specific server           
Get-WmiObject Win32_Printer -ComputerName PrintServer `
 | Sort-Object Name `
 | Select-Object Name, DriverName, PortName, ShareName           
          
# List a specific printer on a server           
Get-WmiObject Win32_Printer -ComputerName PrintServer -Filter "Name='P-UHC6000M-IRC2550'"            
          
# List info on print jobs           
Get-WmiObject Win32_PrintJob -ComputerName PrintServer `
 | Select-Object Document, Owner,           
  @{Label="Status";Expression={$_.JobStatus}},            
  @{Label="PageCount";Expression={$_.TotalPages}},            
  @{Label="DateSubmitted";Expression={[System.Management.ManagementDateTimeconverter]::ToDateTime($_.TimeSubmitted)}}            
             
# List current number of jobs in each print queue           
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_PerfFormattedData_Spooler_PrintQueue -Computer PrintServer -Filter "Name <> '_Total' and Jobs > 0" `
 | Sort Jobs -Descending `
 | Select name, jobs `
 | Format-Table -AutoSize

PowerShell doesn't cure insomnia

Had a bit of trouble sleeping last night, when I noticed that there was a perceptible difference in the amount of light the digital clock emanates.

It got me wondering what time displays the most light. Sure I could have manually figured it out, but isn't more exciting to write a script?

Here it is:

<#   Define a lookup table for the amount of light "bars" each number displays. #>           

$hash = @{"1"=2;"2"=5;"3"=5;"4"=4;     
   "5"=5;"6"=6;"7"=3;"8"=7;     
   "9"=5;"0"=6;":"=0}     
$max=0     
for ($hour = 1; $hour -le 12; $hour++) {     
for ($minute = 0;$minute -lt 60; $minute++) {     
 $time = "{0}:{1:0#}" -f $hour, $minute     
 $timeArray = $time.ToCharArray()     
 $sum=0     
 foreach ($char in $timeArray) {     
     $sum+= $hash[[string]$char]     
 }     
 if ($sum -gt $max) {     
     $max, $maxTime =$sum, $time     
 }     
}     
}     
"{0}`t{1}"-f $max, $maxTime

Enjoy!

Project Euler 112

A brute force attack on Project Euler #112. I suspect there is a more efficient algorithm for this (not using string conversions), but this works.

function Test-Bouncy {          
  param([int]$num)          
  $up=$down=$false          
  $numArray = $num.ToString().ToCharArray()          
  $length = $numArray.Length          
  for($i=1; $i -lt $length; $i++) {          
      if ($numArray[$i-1] -lt $numArray[$i]) {          
          $up = $true          
      }          
      elseif ($numArray[$i-1] -gt $numArray[$i]) {          
          $down = $true          
      }          
      if ($up -and $down) {          
          return $true          
      }          
  }          
  return $false            
}          
        
$isBouncy = $ratio = 0          
$x = 1          
while ($ratio -lt .99) {          
  if(Test-Bouncy $x) {          
      $isBouncy++          
      $ratio = $isBouncy/$x                  
  }          
  $x++          
}          
        
"{0}`t{1}" -f ($x-1),$ratio

Enjoy!

Getting Database counts per Exchange Server via PowerShell

Was recently asked to generate a report of the total count of items per Exchange database per server. This one-liner (broken up for readability), takes care of it.

Get-MailboxServer | Get-MailboxStatistics | `
Sort-Object DatabaseName | `
Select DatabaseName, ItemCount | `
Group-Object -Property DatabaseName | `
Foreach {            
    $items = ($_.Group | Measure-Object -Property ItemCount -sum).Sum            
    "{0}`t{1:N0}" -f $_.Name,$items             
}

This will generate something like the following:

Exchange01-DB01	1,372,127
Exchange01-DB02	1,522,356
Exchange01-DB03	1,406,486
Exchange01-DB04	1,345,962
Exchange01-DB05	1,330,690
Exchange01-DB06	1,392,853
Exchange01-DB07	1,318,130
.....	.....

Enjoy!

Managing Proxy Settings with PowerShell

I find myself changing proxy settings often on my laptop between various environments (Home, Production and Test). Generally this is no big deal. But today, I found myself switching multiple times as I was testing ISA and realized that PowerShell can easily take care of this.

At some point, I will wrap this into a GUI but for now, here is the script.

Note: I am using Jeff Hick's Test-RegistryItem.Enjoy!

function Set-Proxy {          
  [cmdletbinding()]          
  Param (          
      [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$True,          
       HelpMessage="Enter either `"Home`", `"Production`" or `"Test`".")]          
      [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]          
      [ValidateSet("Home", "Production", "Test")]          
      [String]$Location          
  )           
            
  $path = "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings"          
  $url  = "http://autoconf.FatBeard.com/proxy.pac"          
            
  switch ($location)          
  {          
      "Home" {           
          Set-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name ProxyEnable -Value 0          
          if (Test-RegistryItem -Path $path -Property ProxyServer) {          
              Remove-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name ProxyServer          
          }          
          if (Test-RegistryItem -Path $path -Property AutoConfigURL) {          
              Remove-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name AutoConfigURL          
          }          
      }          
      "Production" {          
          Set-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name ProxyEnable -Value 0          
          Set-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name AutoConfigURL -Value $url          
      }          
      "Test" {          
          Set-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name ProxyEnable -Value 1          
          Set-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name ProxyServer -Value "TestProxy-vt01:8080"          
          if (Test-RegistryItem -Path $path -Property AutoConfigURL) {          
              Remove-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name AutoConfigURL          
          }          
      }           
  }          
}

Enjoy!

PowerShell & User Certificates

I was recently asked if I could generate a report of user certificates. I recalled doing this with a .NET class a while back, here is that function:

function Get-Certificate {      
[cmdletBinding()]      
param([Parameter(Position=0,      
Mandatory=$True,      
ValueFromPipeLine=$True)]      
[String]$user)      
    
Begin {       
  Add-PSSnapin `
         -Name Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement `
         -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue }      
    
Process {      
  Get-QADUser -Identity $user | `
        Foreach { $_.DirectoryEntry.userCertificate } | `
        Foreach {[System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2]$_} | `
        Select Issuer, Subject, NotBefore,NotAfter      
}      
}

However, assuming you have the most recent version of the Quest Active Directory cmdlets (1.4.0), this becomes a trivial task.

Get-QADUser -Identity FatBeard | Get-QADCertificate

IssuedBy                 IssuedTo   ValidFrom  ValidTo
--------                 --------   ---------  -------
OSUMC EnterpriseRoot CA  Fat Beard  6/3/2010   6/3/2011
OSUMC EnterpriseRoot CA  Fat Beard  11/9/2009  11/9/2010

Enjoy!

Where's my attribute?

I am often asked why certain Active Directory attributes do not show up when using Get-QADUser (ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory). An example:

(Get-QADUser -Identity FatBeard).employeeID

One might expect this to return the employeeID for Mr. FatBeard.  It doesn't and this is a desired behavior.  In order to maximize performance, the Quest cmdlets return a default list of attributes.  To see non-default attributes you have a few options:

- Use the -IncludeAllProperties parameter.  This will store ALL the attributes in the memory cache.

- Use the -IncludedProperties parameter.  For ad-hoc reporting, when all that is needed are a few attributes, this is the recommended way.
Get-QADUser -Identity FatBeard -IncludedProperties employeeID,logonCount | Select employeeID, logoncount

- Lastly, you can modify the default attributes that are returned.
$attributes = Get-QADPSSnapinSettings -DefaultOutputPropertiesForUserObject

$attributes += 'employeeID'

Set-QADPSSnapinSettings -DefaultOutputPropertiesForUserObject $attributes

(Get-QADUser -Identity FatBeard).employeeID #Success!

Modifying the Snapin settings is only good for the current session. If you want the settings to persist, you will need to add the modification to your profile.

Enjoy!